


Once Upon A Dream

by chronicAngel



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Buried Alive, Gen, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 23:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16670305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: I must look like a ghost, she thinks, digging her dirty nails into her dirty palms.All filthy and yet dressed so formally. They don't know what to think, seeing a girl like this just stumbling through the streets like she belongs there.





	Once Upon A Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Back at it again with the multichapters I may or may not ever finish. If I don't get a chapter up every other week then go over to my [Tumblr](https://chronicangelca.tumblr.com) and yell at me.

_"Ita-kun... Thank you..."_

Her eyes snap open and she gasps, sucking in as much air as she can through her mouth but it's not enough. She can't even process her surroundings, can hardly see, but she smells wet earth and wood and blood, _so much blood_. She claws at her skin to scrape it off and feels nothing beneath her fingernails, but does hiss in pain as her elbow slams into something hard. _Wood_ , she registers after a minute, the heavy scent still filling her nostrils with every desperate breath through her nose. Her eyes finally adjust and she realizes that she is in some sort of box.

There's a sharp throb through her entire head when she tries to activate her Sharingan to see better, and she yells in pain but something about it feels stifled. The air is too warm. Too thick. _Worse than just being in a box_ , she thinks. She tries to get a grip on the wood but it is as though something is holding the lid down and whatever it is, it's much stronger than her limbs, which feel heavy and limp. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath through her nose, taking in the almost overwhelming scent of dirt (mulch, perhaps) and wood. The blood seems to have faded. She exhales through her mouth and then opens her eyes again, forcing herself not to panic. _If I can't activate my Sharingan then I need to assess the situation as calmly as I can. I don't have the resources to panic_.

She notes once more how hot the air seems to be, uncomfortably thick. That plus the earthy smell implies to her that she's been buried alive for some reason. She has to force down another wave of panic at this realization. She slides her hands along the sides of the box, which seems entirely too small now that she realizes what it is, until she feels the slightest crack in the wood, and she digs her nails into it immediately, pulling with all of her strength at it. Her hands slip a few times, but eventually she manages to pry it away, exposing a large section in the side of the wood. The water that has seeped into the dirt around her coffin seems to have played somewhat to her advantage, keeping it packed enough that most of it does not spill into the box with her.

It is only a couple of minutes before she has peeled away enough wood that she is confident she can fit through the gap. The bottom inch or so of the coffin is filled with damp earth and she can imagine the insects inside it squirming against her back. She has to ignore the bile that rises in her throat as she starts digging at the mud that surrounds her burial ground. It takes no time at all for her nails and fingertips to grow caked with mud.

She can hardly breathe the further she digs. The air underground is limited and filthy, and the amount of humidity in the air makes her feel like her lungs are rattling with sickness. It must take hours for her to break the surface, even as she grabs clumps of dirt large enough to fill her hands and throws them behind her, taking advantage of the newly vacant space left behind in her coffin.

She emerges coughing from the small amount of air she inhaled and the dirt she feels has filled her lungs. She feels filthy, and knows she must look it too. She hardly cares as she takes greedy gasps of breath, her head and shoulders out of the ground, hands balled tightly around grass to cling to the progress she has made. She will not drop back into that hole after all of this. It takes a couple of minutes and more effort than she would like, but she eventually drags herself out of it and onto the damp ground. It smells like rain, but she does not feel any on her skin. _It must have just stopped_ , she thinks as her cheek drops against the wet ground.

When she rolls onto her back, the sky is dark and the moon is only half full. _It was full just last night_ , she thinks, and her eyebrows would furrow if she had the strength left for it. Her memory of the previous night is patchy at best, but she remembers that much.

 _The full moon. His arms around her. Tears on her face. Some hers. Some not. That feeling like your life is flashing before your eyes, but it's a life she didn't get the chance to live yet. "Ita-kun... Thank you..."_ She is startled out of the memory by the feeling of tears on her face once more. They are hers and only hers this time. She doesn't know where Itachi is now, but she is sure it must be long gone.

She curls up on her side in the grass, hardly caring that she is getting more mud on her skin, and lets out a sob. She sounds frail even to her own ears. Her sobs are like the cracks of bones breaking.

She does not know how long passes like that. She thinks she must fall asleep at some point, because by the time she wakes up, her skin is itchy and there is a harsh light against her eyes. She almost panics once more, the warmth and the light reminding her too much of the fire jutsu her clan is known for.  _It was all a dream. I didn't crawl out of my own grave and I'm still at the Uchiha compound and everyone is fighting Itachi. I just woke up. When I look at my hands, there won't be any mud underneath my fingernails because it wasn't real_. When she finally peers down at her fingers, she sees the mud and blood that have dried on her fingertips and underneath the nails.

 _The sun is up_ , she registers after a long time of blinking at her surroundings, shaking despite the heat. _The rain and the heat must mean it's summer_. This tracks with what she can remember. It was the very cusp of June and July last she can remember. She remembers thinking how muggy it had been before... before. It's that thought which motivates her to force herself to her feet, her legs shaking underneath her. She feels as though she can hardly support her own weight, but forces herself forward anyway. _I have to tell everybody else... and find Itachi_.

She knows she's just being optimistic. There is no finding a good shinobi who does not want to be found, and Itachi was and always will be the best. However, she holds out hope that he did not actually kill her because, on a level, he does want her to find him. _And it would help to be able to ask his parents where he might have gone_ , she thinks, forcing herself to take a step. She does not look at the graves around her because it is too painful a reminder of where she just was, and for a similar reason ignores just how empty the area is. _You'd think they'd be able to visit_ , she thinks. _Oka-chan at least should be here somewhere..._ She forces herself out of that train of thought and stares at the ground as she keeps walking.

She knows it is early in the morning by how few people are really out and about, but she can feel every eye on her as she walks through the village caked head to toe in mud.

She is not sure if she is purposely tuning out the whispers of the villagers as she passes or if she is simply incapable of processing it, but it feels as though the silence rings in her ears. It weighs down on her shoulders like a thick blanket and it is nearly enough to make her knees buckle under her. She is too weak still for the added pressure of all of Konoha's gaze. She forces her eyes to her feet because she does not know where else to look without seeing a pair of judging or else pitying eyes looking back at her. She only realizes now that she cannot see them, hidden by a long black kimono. _Death clothes_ , she realizes, and understands suddenly why everyone is staring at her.

 _I must look like a ghost_ , she thinks, digging her dirty nails into her dirty palms. _All filthy and yet dressed so formally. They don't know what to think, seeing a girl like this just stumbling through the streets like she belongs there_. She refuses to feel guilty even as there is a twisting feeling in her chest that reminds her so much of it. Why should she feel guilty that they all buried her alive? She doesn't even recognize most of these people!

She bumps into a hard chest and nearly falls over only to feel strong arms wrap around her waist to catch her. When she looks up, she half-expects to see Itachi himself, ruby eyes meeting hers again. "I'm... s-sorry," she murmurs, and she thinks she sounds out of breath.

Three quarters of his face are hidden behind a mask and his hitai-ate, but what she can see of his expression softens. His eye is closed with a smile, and there is a book on the ground that suggests to her that he was reading. _Of course you'll bump into people if you don't watch where you're walking_. "Don't be," he says, voice a low rumble. It is soothing in a very different way from Itachi's, as though she could just fall into this man's arms and he would take care of her without question. Itachi-kun's had felt like he already was taking care of her-- like he always had been. He bends over to pick up his book, looking for all the world like nothing has ever bothered him.

When he straightens, finally looking at her, his lone uncovered eye widens and the book drops to the ground once more.

"You're... Uchiha Izumi?" He asks, though it sounds more like a bewildered statement of fact than a real question. Nonetheless, she nods, squinting in the attempt to recognize him. _He's not an Uchiha, that much is certain_ , she thinks, eyes sliding to his wild silver hair. What she can see of his face seems much too young for the color. Any other thoughts she may have about his appearance are cut off as he scoops her up, an arm under her legs and a hand splayed to brace her back. His book is left forgotten on the ground as he springs into the air with a speed that makes her stomach lurch. She can only name four people off the top of her head who have ever been able to move that fast, jumping from rooftop to rooftop toward the Uchiha Compound so quickly it makes her dizzy.

She closes her eyes halfway between the compound and where he picked her up in the attempt to quell some of her rising nausea. She doesn't dare to open them until they have been stopped for multiple seconds, and she gasps when she sees it.

There is no life in the place. Some of the older buildings have wood visibly rotting from water damage no one dared to investigate, the shōji on half of the buildings completely broken apart as though someone had fallen through them and then never gotten up to fix them. She recognizes the deep stains of blood that wasn't quite properly washed out of wood if she looks hard enough and she thinks she feels her stomach lurch. _As though someone had fallen through them and then never gotten up to fix them_. She realizes now that this is exactly what happened.

"Ita-kun..." She whispers, her voice pained even to her own ears. Her mind flashes to that night all over again. His tears on her face. His ruby eyes meeting hers, tomoe spinning as he wove an illusion for her so perfect she didn't want to break it. Her own weak, whispered _thank you_. If she thinks very hard, she thinks she remembers an apology breathed into her hair in the last moments before she fell unconscious. "Did..." She looks at the stranger who carried her here, still standing only a few feet away as though he expects he'll have to pick up her broken pieces. "Did Itachi do this?"

He does not say anything aloud, but the way his eye drops to the ground is confirmation enough. _A ghost_ , she thinks again, feeling hollow. _They're all dead. My whole clan... they're gone_.

"Who are you?"

She whips around, startled. A boy who must not be much younger than she is-- younger than she _was_ , whenever everything happened-- stands there, gripping a kunai with white knuckles. She recognizes his soft features-- the long eyelashes, the wide eyes, the terrible haircut. He's older, but she knows him. "Sa-chan?"


End file.
